How much the act of secrecy is done by medical staff? A descriptive cross-sectional survey in south of Iran

Some information may be gathered during the medical procedures, including medical records or personal information. Many of them can be considered as secrets. The medical staff has the duty of privacy, which means keeping the secrets away from a third party. Hippocratic Oath accepts no exceptions but modern ethical express the situations in which the disclosure of secrets is allowed, legal, or even necessary. The present study is about to evaluate the act of secrecy in medical staff of the tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran. This cross sectional study is done on 204 members of medical staff of 8 different wards in tertiary health care centers affiliated with Jahrom University of Medical Sciences in south of Iran, using a questionnaire of 31 questions in 5 major categories adding to a data sheet for demographic information (age, gender, ward). Validity and reliability of the questionnaire was proved by previous studies. Collected data analyzed by dependent T-test, Fisher's exact and SPSS.17 using descriptive and deductive statistics. The mean rate of secrecy was 3.82± 0.75. Respecting others in the category of "goals of secrecy" earned 4.48, common medical services in the category of "reasons for disclosure" earned 3.89, damage to the patient in the category of "legal reasons for disclosure" earned 4.05, patient's rights in "personal reasons for secrecy" earned 4.07, and informing the medical managers in "proper way to confront the offenders" with the score 2.85 were the highest scores of each category. The variant Ages (p=0.003) and wards (p=0.03) showed significant differences in the secrecy. Results show that the medical staff is not familiar enough to the legal and ethical indications of secrecy, so holding in-service courses may be effective

Pastoral Traditional Ecological Knowledge Dynamicity: A Global Review

There is a significant knowledge gap concerning the extent to which pastoral traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) has changed. We conducted a systematic review of 152 papers on pastoral TEK, focusing specifically on 63 papers that explicitly mentioned types of knowledge transitions (retention, erosion, adaptation or hybridization). Studies on pastoral TEK represent less than 3% of all the scholarly literature on TEK. Geographical distribution of the case studies was largely biased. Knowledge domains of pastoral TEK such as herd and livestock management, forage and medicinal plants, and landscape and wildlife were relatively equally covered, however, climate-related knowledge was less studied. Out of the 63 papers explicitly mentioning transition of pastoral TEK, 83% reported erosion, and only 11 studies documented explicitly knowledge retention, adaptation or hybridization. We conclude that future research should focus more on the diverse dynamics of pastoral traditional knowledge, be more careful in distinguishing the four knowledge transition types

Field Oriented Control of Dual Mechanical Port Machine for Hybrid Electric Vehicle

A dual mechanical port machine (DMPM) is used as an electrically variable transmission (EVT) in hybrid electric vehicle (HEV). In the conventional HEV, this machine is replaced by a planetary gearbox and two electric machines and makes this structure simpler. This paper presents field oriented control (FOC) for DMPM. For HEV application, drive efficiency and wide operating speed range are important. The control strategy, which uses the maximum torque per ampere (MTPA) method at low speed and flux weakening (FW) method at high speed are proposed. The model of DMPM considering the magnetic coupling between two air gaps has been developed in MATLAB/Simulink and the proposed control strategy is applied to DMPM. The simulation results have been provided with a brief discussion at the end

An android application for estimating muscle onset latency using surface EMG signal

Background: Electromyography (EMG) signal processing and Muscle Onset Latency (MOL) are widely used in rehabilitation sciences and nerve conduction studies. The majority of existing software packages provided for estimating MOL via analyzing EMG signal are computerized, desktop based and not portable; therefore, experiments and signal analyzes using them should be completed locally. Moreover, a desktop or laptop is required to complete experiments using these packages, which costs. Objective: Develop a non-expensive and portable Android application (app) for estimating MOL via analyzing surface EMG. Material and Methods: A multi-layer architecture model was designed for implementing the MOL estimation app. Several Android-based algorithms for analyzing a recorded EMG signal and estimating MOL was implemented. A graphical user interface (GUI) that simplifies analyzing a given EMG signal using the presented app was developed too. Results: Evaluation results of the developed app using 10 EMG signals showed promising performance; the MOL values estimated using the presented app are statistically equal to those estimated using a commercial Windows-based surface EMG analysis software (MegaWin 3.0). For the majority of cases relative error <10. MOL values estimated by these two systems are linearly related, the correlation coefficient value ~ 0.93. These evaluations revealed that the presented app performed as well as MegaWin 3.0 software in estimating MOL. Conclusion: Recent advances in smart portable devices such as mobile phones have shown the great capability of facilitating and decreasing the cost of analyzing biomedical signals, particularly in academic environments. Here, we developed an Android app for estimating MOL via analyzing the surface EMG signal. Performance is promising to use the app for teaching or research purposes. © 2019, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. All right reserved

Electrochemical polymerisation of phenol in aqueous solution on a Ta/PbO2 anode

This paper deals with the treatment of aqueous phenol solutions using an electrochemical technique. Phenol can be partly eliminated from aqueous solution by electrochemically initiated polymerisation. Galvanostatic electrolyses of phenol solutions at concentration up to 0.1 mol dm−3 were carried out on a Ta/PbO2 anode. The polymers formed are insoluble in acidic medium but soluble in alkaline. These polymers were filtered and then dissolved in aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide (1 mol dm−3). The polymers formed were quantified by total organic carbon (TOC) measurement. It was found that the conversion of phenol into polymers increases as a function of initial concentration, anodic current density, temperature, and solution pH. The percentage of phenol polymerised can reach 15%

Day-ahead economic dispatch of coupled desalinated water and power grids with participation of compressed air energy storages

Nowadays, water and electricity are closely interdependent essential sources in human life that affect socio-economic growth and prosperity. In other words, electricity is a fundamental source to supply a seawater desalination process, while fresh water is used for cooling this power plant. Therefore, mutual vulnerability of water treatment and power generation systems is growing because of increased potable water and electricity demands especially during extremely-hot summer days. Hence, this paper presents a novel framework for optimal short-term scheduling of water-power nexus aiming to minimize total seawater desalination and electricity procurement cost while satisfying all operational constraints of conventional thermal power plants, co-producers and desalination units. Moreover, advanced adiabatic compressed air energy storage (CAES) with no need to fossil fuels can participate in energy procurement process by optimal charging during off-peak periods and discharging at peak load hours. A mixed integer non-linear programming (MINLP) problem is solved under general algebraic mathematical modeling system to minimize total water treatment cost of water only units and co-producers, total fuel cost of thermal power plants and co-generators. Ramp up and down rates, water and power generation capacities and balance criteria have been considered as optimization constraints. It is found that without co-optimization of desalination and power production plants, load-generation mismatch occurs in both water and energy networks. By incorporating CAES in water-power grids, total fuel cost of thermal units and co-producers reduce from $1222.3 and$24933.2 to $1174.8 and$24636.8, respectively. In other words, application of CAES results in $343.9 cost saving in benchmark water-power hybrid grid

Estimation of production potential in lake behind the Halilrud dam in Jiroft city

In order to the physical and chemical factors, planktons identification, determination of Chlorophylla and primary production in lake on study wad conducted, behind the Halilrud dam in Jiroft city. For this purpose 5 station selected and sampling was performed seasonally. Compersion of physical, chemical factors and planktons were done by duncan multiple test range. Studied factors had the suitable value for fish culture. In classes of Chrysophyceae, Bacillariophyceae and, Chlorophyceae had the most frequency respectively. Totally 49 phytoplanktons genus were identified which 18, 14,8,5 and 3 genus were related to Chlorophy ceae, Bacillariophyceae, Cyanophyceae, Dinophyceae and Chrysophyceae, genus respectively. Nitzchia and Navicula in Bacillariophyceae, Chlorococcum, Pediastrum, Staurastrum and Tetradron in Chlorophyceae, Spirulina, Chroococcus, Phormidium in Cyanophyceae and Dinobryon in Chrysophyceae had the most frequency. From Various group of zooplankton, Copepoda, Naplius, Cladocera, Rotifera (Brachinus, Keretella), Trichuridae were identified in winter season and Rotifera was the most of all. Chlorophylla had not significant difference in 9 seasons but it had significan difference in 5 depthes. Increasing in depth causes to decrease chlirophyla. The most chlorophylla was in 0.5m depth (4.7 mg/m3 ) and the least chlorophyllla was in 20m depth(0.82mg/m^3) primary production in lake was calculated by chlorophylla equal to 154 kg/ha/year

Analysis of Association between IL-17 gene rs2275913 Single Nucleotide Polymorphism and Chronic Hepatitis B Infection

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Hepatitis B disease is one of the main causes of inflammation and liver damage that can lead to chronic hepatitis B virus infection. Single nucleotide polymorphism in the cytokines gene can affect the host immune response. Interleukin 17 produced by Thelper17 cells has been shown to play a role in immune function in infectious and inflammatory diseases. This study was conducted to investigate the association between polymorphism in IL-17 gene (rs2275913) and chronic hepatitis B infection. METHODS: This case-control study was performed on 130 chronic patients as a case group and 130 healthy individuals as control. Patients with positive result of ELISA test for HBsAg and Anti-HBc Ab and control subjects with negative result of this test were enrolled. PCR-RFLP was used to genotype extracted DNA from blood samples. FINDINGS: The genotype frequencies of rs2275913 did not show significant difference between patients and control groups. Distribution of genotypes inpatients were, 40.8% GG, 41.5% AG, 17.7% AA and in control group were, 42.3% GG, 45.4% AG, 12.3% GG (p=0.469). CONCLUSION: The results of study showed no relation between IL-17 gene polymorphism rs2275913 and chronic HBV

Slow graft function after pediatric renal transplantation from volunteer live donors

Slow graft function (SGF) may occur during the early post-transplant period. In this paper, we present our findings regarding SGF after pediatric renal transplantation and its predictive variables. From 1985 to 2004, a total of 300 pediatric renal transplants were performed at our institution. A total of 10 cases with SGF and 50 controls that were operated by the same surgeons were enrolled in this study. The mean age of the recipients and donors was 11.4 (3-15 yr) and 28.05 yr (20-50 yr), respectively. All kidneys were retrieved from living donors. We compared patients with SGF with controls regarding four independent variables: age difference between donors and recipients, serum hemoglobin difference between donors and recipients, mean blood pressure (systolic blood pressure + 2 diastolic blood pressure/3) difference between donors and recipients, and weight difference between donors and recipients. The mean age of recipients was 10.5 ± 4.1 in SGF group and 11.6 ± 2.5 in control group (p = 0.4). The differences between donors and recipients regarding weight and mean blood pressure in subjects with SGF were not higher than other patients (42 kg vs. 37.4 kg, p = 0.4; -3 mmHg vs. -4.1 mmHg, p = 0.8). The mean hemoglobin difference between donors and recipients was 6.3 ± 2.1 g/dL in SGF group and 6.7 ± 2.3 g/dL in control group (p = 0.6). The differences between donors and recipients regarding age, weight, mean blood pressure and serum hemoglobin level are not predictive variables for SGF. © 2007 Blackwell Munksgaard